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Poetry Kaleidoscope: Guide to Poetry

Epigram

An epigram is a short
poem with a clever
twist at the end or a concise and witty statement. They are among the
best examples of the power of poetry to compress insight and
wit.

Ancient Greek

The epigram originated in Greece as a form for inscription on a monument or
grave, hence the word 'epigram' from the Greek words meaning 'to write on'.
Epigrams were thus much shorter than
lyric poetry
which developed from forms designed for performance accompanied by musical
instruments.

One such monument inscription is
Simonides's epitaph for the Spartan dead after the Battle of Thermopylae,which
can be found in Herodotus' work The Histories
(7.228), to the Spartans:

ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε

(O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti täde/

κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

keimetha tois keinon rhämasi peithomenoi.)

Which to keep the poetic context can be translated as:

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by

that here, obedient to their laws we lie

or more literally as:

Oh foreigner, tell the
Lacedaemonians

that here we lie, obeying those words.

Epigrams were not defined by their subject matter, however. The largest
surviving collection, the
Greek
Anthology, contains poems on love, inscriptions dedicating gifts to the
gods, moral
or philosophical advice, and invective. Nor were epigrams required to be witty
(though many, especially invectives and satirical ones, were). The defining
characteristics of an epigram were its length, often restricted to a single
couplet, and its
meter,
almost always the
elegiac
couplet.

Many noted Greek writers composed epigrams, including some, who, like
Plato, Solon and Aeschylus, were more famous for their work in other genres. The
'Anthology' contains examples from very early Greek history all the way into the
Byzantine period, and even some examples by Christians. Epigrams were also
written by women and other members of the less privileged classes. Nicarchus and
Martial are two
epigrammatists from the first century AD.

Ancient Roman

Roman epigrams owe much to their Greek predecessors and contemporaries. Roman
epigrams, however, were more often satirical than Greek ones, and at times used
obscene language for effect. Latin epigrams could be composed as inscriptions or
graffiti, such as this one from Pompeii, which
exists in several versions and seems from its inexact meter to have been
composed by a less educated person. Its content, of course, makes it clear how
popular such poems were:

Admiror, O paries, te non cecidisse ruinis

qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas.

I'm astonished, wall, that you haven't collapsed into ruins,

since you're holding up the weary verse of so many poets.

However, in the literary world, epigrams were most often gifts to patrons or
entertaining verse to be published, not inscriptions. Many Roman writers seem to
have composed epigrams, including
Domitius Marsus, whose collection 'Cicuta' (now lost) was named after the
poisonous hemlock tree for its biting wit, and Lucan, more famous for his epic
Pharsalia. Authors whose epigrams survive include Catullus, who wrote
both invectives and love epigrams-- his poem 85 is one of the latter.

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.

Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.

I hate and I love. Perhaps you're asking how I do this?

I don't know, but I feel it happening, and it's torture.

The master of the Latin epigram, however, is
Martial. His technique
relies heavily on the satirical poem with a joke in the last line, thus drawing
him closer to the modern idea of epigram as a genre. Here he defines his genre
against a (probably fictional) critic (in the latter half of 2.77):

Disce quod ignoras: Marsi doctique Pedonis

saepe duplex unum pagina tractat opus.

Non sunt longa quibus nihil est quod demere possis,

sed tu, Cosconi, disticha longa facis.

Learn what you don't know: one work of (Domitius) Marsus or learned
Pedo

often stretches out over a doublesided page.

A work isn't long if you can't take anything out of it,

but you, Cosconius, write even a couplet too long.

Poetic epigrams

Samuel Taylor Coleridge said,

What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole;

Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

Little strokes

Fell great oaks.

—
Benjamin Franklin

Here lies my wife: here let her lie!

Now she's at rest — and so am I.

—
John Dryden

I am His Highness' dog at Kew;

Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

—
Alexander Pope

I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme.

But Money gives me pleasure all the time.

—
Hilaire Belloc

Non-poetic epigrams

Occasionally, simple and witty statements, though not poetical per se, may
also be considered epigrams, such as one attributed to
Oscar Wilde: "I can resist everything except temptation." Dorothy Parker's witty
one-liners can be considered epigrams. Also, Macdonald Carey's legendary line
"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives" can be considered an epigram, as the meaning of life is concisely
explained in a simile.

Another good example of a possible epigram,"The only way to get rid of a
temptation is to yield to it."

The term is sometimes used for particularly pointed or much-quoted
quotations taken from
longer works.

See also

An epigraph is an
inscription on a building or a quotation used to introduce a written work.